Chapter 46
Cecilia
Breathing in the sweet, delicious scent of the cinnamon bun on the small table in front of me, I glance sidelong at Mikhail. He looks lost in thought as he watches out of the window of the jet taking us to Michigan, where Ms. Donatello was last seen by the Bratva hackers.
When he left for LA days ago, he went to settle his debt with Wolfgang.
I wonder if it’s over now—if he got the closure he needed.
Though, if I learned anything after going through arguably one of the worst moments of my entire life, it’s that the demons of the past don’t go away when you want them to.
I worry for him. Most likely, he’s still swimming there, in the depths of that ocean of pain and sadness. I wish I could’ve been there for him like he has been for me.
“Hey,” I say over the buzz of the aircraft. When he looks at me, he smiles, and my legs turn to water. He looks so handsome. “I never got to ask you. Have you solved whatever you needed to solve back in Los Angeles?”
He shakes his head, the bright emerald of his eyes flashing with a hint of resignation. His hand brushes my thigh. “Not yet, but soon. Then, it should be over.”
I don’t fail to notice the way he phrases it, like he himself is not sure of how things will end. Like he’s losing hope.
“I’m sorry,” I say, placing my hand on top of his. His gaze follows the motion. “I know what it’s like, now more than ever, to hate the person you once were.”
“Why? You never hurt anyone.”
I hurt myself. I let others dictate my life and walk all over me. I’m humiliated and ashamed, but I don’t say any of it. This isn’t about me now. It’s about him.
“You can hurt people and still love them. We’re human. Neither one of us is supposed to be perfect,” I say.
“And yet, you are.” He takes my hand and kisses it, his lips soft and warm, promising my undoing. “You’re fucking perfect.”
My mouth twitches with a smile. “You’ve been tending to me for far too long. Let me settle my debt,” I say jokingly, but this isn’t really about some kind of payback. I just want to be able to ground him like he has been grounding me through all this mess.
“I’ve been alone most of my life, Cecilia. My pain knows no company, no relief. It’s mine to carry, and I don’t want it to touch you more than it already has.”
“But—”
“Eat your dessert. I’ll be right back,” he says, standing to walk to the others—Rodion and Niko.
He asked them to come with us, and it was the only way I could convince him to take me with him to find my mentor.
Otherwise, he says it would’ve been too dangerous, that he would’ve brought her to me at home instead.
But I want to be there when we find her, to see the look on her face when she realizes I’m no longer the child she forged in lies and manipulation.
Most importantly, I need to know if she’s the one who killed the most important person in my life. One thing is for sure, though—she never cared about me. She was just doing a job, a job she told me she was exceptionally good at. I can’t believe I trusted her so blindly.
What else has she been lying to me about?
Had no one truly reached out to me to perform at their events all those years?
She knew it was what I wanted—what I needed to do in order to survive my claustrophobic life.
Instead, she kept me small and dependent, making sure my memory stayed stuck in that rut.
I bite into my cinnamon bun—the one from the Alemont City bakery I love—and the flavors make me audibly moan, my eyes fluttering closed. When I open them again, my husband turns to me with amusement in his eyes, his tall, dark figure standing with his hands in his pockets, watching me from afar.
We land in Michigan, and Rodion drives us through the five PM traffic to what appears to be a homeless shelter.
When Maksim told us this was where Ms. Donatello was last seen, I was confused.
What would she be doing here? If anything, she’d look completely out of place in her precious designer outfits.
Unless, perhaps, she’s not here to hide, but to talk to someone.
“Stay here,” Mikhail orders me, but I get out of the car anyway, following him. When he sees me, his brows shoot up.
“Please. I can’t just sit twiddling my thumbs. Take me with you.”
He takes my hand, interlacing his fingers with mine, making my heart flutter. “Stay close then.”
I nod, and we walk into the shelter together, him first, me trailing close behind him. Inside, people are queuing up to eat, the smell of soup and biscuits filling the air. Mikhail drags me through the crowd, and I smile to those who make eye contact.
They look trapped, like they don’t want to be here but have nowhere else to go. I hate that they have to go through this, making a mental note to call this place later and ask if they accept donations.
“How do you know where we’re going?” I ask, following him.
“The shelter manager. His office has to be somewhere around here,” he says.
And, sure enough, there is one. We stop in front of a closed white door, the paint chipped around the edges. Without knocking, Mikhail barges in like he already had a meeting with the man. I doubt that’s the case.
“Excuse me, you can’t be in here!” the manager—a man in his fifties with a pointy mustache—yells.
“Close the door, sweetheart,” Mikhail says calmly.
I do what he says.
“We’re looking for someone, and she was last seen here,” my husband continues, showing the man his phone with a picture of my mentor. “Ring a bell?”
He takes in Mikhail’s tattoos then glances at the door behind me. “I—I don’t know. Lots of people come and go around here.”
“Mmm, yes. But see, this person wouldn’t be too hard to miss. Look again.”
“I don’t—I…” By the look on his face, he truly has no idea who Ms. Donatello is.
“If you have a list of people who have passed away recently, could you maybe give us that instead?” I chime in. Mikhail looks at me, his eyes flashing with understanding.
The man frowns. “I really wish I could help you, but I can’t give out information like—”
My husband places his gun on the table, and I don’t fail to notice how absolutely unfazed I am at the gesture. Not anymore. “My wife asked you a fucking question.”
“Jesus…” The manager shrinks back, awkwardly shifting through a bunch of documents with shaky hands. “H-Here. Take it and leave.”
“Attaboy,” Mikhail says, his demeanor changing to the amused, charming version of him. He snatches the paper and takes my hand, leading us out of the shelter and back into the car.
“Found her?” Niko asks, twisting to look at us from the passenger’s seat.
“Not yet. But we’re about to,” Mikhail says.
He calls Maksim and gives him the list of names.
If Ms. Donatello came here to steal an identity, we should be able to find records of one of these women somewhere in the vicinity.
A lump forms in my throat, my stomach squeezing and churning with anxiety.
If we can’t find her…then I’ll never know what happened to my mother.
My husband picks up my chin with his knuckles, twisting it toward him. “You okay?”
I nod, trying to convince both of us. “Yes. I just want to find her.”
As if on cue, his phone vibrates with an incoming message, and after reading it, he throws me a knowing look. “Looks like we just have.”
The scent of oil and damp concrete fills the parking garage.
Half the lights are dead above us, the fluorescents flickering now and then.
None of us are speaking, except the men seem to be communicating silently through subtle hand gestures, as if there have been other situations like this one, and they know exactly how to handle it.
That’s when we see her.
Leaning against a black sedan, blonde wig, iPhone in her hand, Lisa Jenkins—Ms. Donatello’s new identity—waits for a ride that’s never coming. My husband’s hackers took care of it, but, of course, she doesn’t know that.
And she hasn’t seen us yet.
My heart pitter-patters inside my chest, sweat coating my palms. For a second, I’m six years old again, standing in her piano room, waiting to be told if I did well or not.
She’s as intimidating as ever, all tall and sophisticated in a dark designer coat, yet the fear burns away when the memory of my mother’s blood flashes behind my eyes.
Niko and Rodion veer to the left, hiding between cars and concrete columns, while Mikhail jerks his head in the opposite direction.
I nod, taking a deep breath, following him.
My husband’s hold on me is firm yet gentle, reassuring me in all the right ways.
I know there’s nothing he won’t protect me from, and a bit of that primordial confidence he carries with him transfers over to me for once. I’ve got this.
Finally, as we slide from behind a parked Jeep, my mentor raises her head and sees us.
It begins with a quick frown, like she can’t quite believe it’s little old me who caught up with her. Me, the kid whose hair she used to braid. The little girl whose head she filled with lies upon lies until the only truth she knew was the bullshit spilling from her mouth.
Before we stop in front of her, that frown quickly dissipates. Her lifelong, burnished killer instinct kicks in, and where there was surprise, now, there’s composure. A smile hangs off the corner of her lips, amused and patronizing.
“Well, this is a surprise,” she chirps. “What are you doing here, of all places?”
I take a final step forward, maintaining eye contact. “I could ask you the same thing. Lisa.”
A second of silence passes and, like a statue carved from arrogance, her expression remains unchanged. “Excuse me?”
“I wasn’t expecting a confession right away, but you could at least stop lying.” My voice shakes a little, but I still force the words out. “Tell me what really happened to my mother.”
She shifts her weight from one leg to the other. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”
“Tell me!” I cry out, my voice echoing through the garage like thunder in a valley.